Dimi Vassiliou-Constantinides

On February 4th 2007, my twin sister Dimi went into cardiac arrest due to her undiagnosed Long QT Syndrome. We had just turned 35 years old a few days before. She was a healthy, beautiful young woman building a beautiful life with her husband and her 2 young children. She was enjoying a night at her friends house when she just suddenly fainted. Even though she had fainted a few times before, the difference this time was that she would not wake up. The ambulance came and the EMS workers tried to revive her which they finally did, but she was left in a coma. This was the beginning of the horrible long journey for her and her family. We stood by her bed for months crying, waiting and praying that she would wake up. During this her doctors discovered after multiple tests that the reason this happened this to her is because she has an arrhythmia of the heart called Long QT syndrome. We just couldn’t understand or comprehend it. All we could ask ourselves was ‘Why? …why was is not diagnosed before?’. While she was still in the hospital in a coma they insisted I check in, so they can do all the same testing to me, as they were worried since I am her twin. I was so distraught but I was just happy to be in the same hospital as her just so that I can walk over and see her through the night. Just so that I was able to be with her. So I agreed. After doing all the same tests on me they recommended I, as well as Dimi, have a defribulator placed. They couldn’t confirm for certain that I had it as well, but they thought it would be best so the same does not happen to me.

After what seemed like an eternity, Dimi woke up and we thought it was over. Little did we know there was a lot more to come. She had lost a lot of oxygen in the brain and that left her with a lot of disabilities. But we were determined to make her better. We had to help her as best as we could. Her husband found the best places that deal with Anoxic Brain Injuries and we started her long journey to make her better. She was living at these places for months at a time. We would take turns traveling to them to make sure one of us was always with her. They worked so hard with her everyday and we had so much hope but after a while of her not showing significant improvement the insurance would not pay anymore and we would have to find a new place to accept her and so on and so forth. We would not give up on her and this whole time we would wonder if she even understood what was going on as she was not able to communicate, walk, or do anything on her own. As we ran out of places and she didn’t seem to get better we finally settled on a care facility close to home that would mostly take care of her and give her therapies there. We were heartbroken but we knew there was nothing more we could do. We still had some glimpse of hope, but as the years would go by our hope deteriorated as so did she. As we all know life moves on and we all learned how to just live with the pain of seeing her in this place. Dimi was not really living, she was just there, but at least we still had her here with us. Fast forward, 16 years later Dimi was diagnosed with breast cancer. We are not sure what stage, as the doctors could not do the appropriate tests on her due to her condition to find out. What we did know, was that the cancer was extremely advanced. On January 26th, 2024, just 5 days before our 52nd Birthday, she passed away from her breast cancer. But what really took our Dimi from us was the Long Qt syndrome that destroyed her life 16 years ago. Because of this terrible heart disorder Dimi was robbed of the ability to fight her cancer. Because of Long QT Syndrome she is not able to be here in this world with us. We ask that you donate to the SADS Foundation in honor of our Dimi so that no one else has to endure the pain that she went through. Thank you.